The Forfar Witches

The bustling market town of Forfar shares a terrible secret with many other parts of Scotland in the seventeenth century. 

The town was the scene of a terrible witch hunt, which resulted in the torture and execution of several local women.

According to the town council's records, the witch hunt appears to have been triggered in 1661 by an argument between Isobel Shyrie, a poor woman who was unable to pay her taxes, and Baillie George Wood, a tax collector. During the quarrel, Isobel cursed Baillie Wood.  When the unfortunate man suddenly dropped dead, all fingers pointed at Isobel.

In those days, it was considered that there were three ways to spot a witch - she went by a nickname instead of the name she was baptised with; there was a mark on her body that was impervious to pain; or she practiced 'malefice', which was the use of supernatural means to do evil.  Isobel was widely believed to be guilty of malefice, which was sufficient for her to be sent to the dungeon below the Tolbooth, situated on the road next to the Town House in Forfar town centre.

Stirred up by the burgh's zealous new minister, James Robertsone, the hunt was soon underway for the other witches in Isobel's coven. Helen Guthrie, Isobel's best friend and well-known for her knowledge of the healing powers of herbs, was next to be taken to the Tollbooth for 'questioning', along with her 13-year-old daughter Janet Howatt, who was judged to be a witch simply because her mother was a witch.

Helen knew the terrible fate that lay in wait for her now she had been named as a witch but she was determined to save her daughter. So she named names and gradually 'confessed' to the terrible things the coven had carried out, confident the Town Council would not execute her or her daughter as long as she was providing them with information.

The accusations flew: drinking in the graveyard at midnight; dancing on gravestones; digging up an unbaptised baby to concoct magic potions; performing rites of black magic on the beach at Barry, cavorting with the devil on the island in the centre of Forfar Loch. Soon Helen, Janet and Isobel were joined in the dark, cold dungeon by more women, who were all tortured mercilessly until they also confessed to their 'evil' deeds.

The first witch to die was Girsel Simpsone. However, it appears that this was more a case of a mob lynching than an execution as the Town Council records include a bill for a rope for the 'down-letting' of Simpsone from the top floor window of the tollbooth.

Janet Bertie and Helen Alexander were banished from the town - which was basically a sentence to a long, slow death from cold and starvation - while Christen Person had to promise to return to prison if anyone ever again accused her of witchcraft.

At least six suspected 'witches' were executed on the Playfield, which is now Victoria Street, in full view of the inhabitants of Forfar, who treated each execution as a day out. The women were strangled first and then their bodies burnt in a barrel of tar, with the heavy smoke blowing across the cheering spectators and right over the town.

Helen Guthrie was one of the women executed on the Playfield but, for some reason, her orphaned daughter, Janet, was left behind in the dungeon. In 1666, James Guthrie, a lawyer from Dundee, pleaded with the Town Council for Helen Guthrie's daughter to be set free. The council responded by setting the date for another trial and, as there is no note of a further execution, it can only be hoped that, at the age of 18 years, Janet was finally released from her dark and lonely prison.

The Forfar witch hunt was finally over. Although most of those accused of being witches met a very nasty end, a few survived and it is likely that their descendants live in the town to this day.

Watch our short film on the Forfar Witches »